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peteski

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Posts posted by peteski

  1. Nice collection Scott!

    If you can produce your own decal artwork, there are decal companies (usually 1-man shops) that can print them for you with white ink (on Alps printers).  well, then can do the artwork for you too, but that gets really expensive (because it is time-consuming task).  But just printing your print-ready artwork is quite affordable.

    Here is a link to a page which lists those custom decal manufacturers (scroll down to the Custom decal companies section):

    http://robdebie.home.xs4all.nl/models/decals.htm

     

    As far as the artwork requirements go, here is an excerpt from http://www.fireballmodels.info/

    No, please do not send me any bitmap artwork.  I won't print it. 
    Artwork should be in Vector format for best print results.
    Color Matching is an art with Alps printers, not a science.  For the most part, precise color matching is not possible.
    Convert all type to curves in the final file that you want printed.  This ensures your fonts will not cause problems.
    Use a neutral-colored background so that the White portions will stand out clearly. The templates have a neutral blue background.

  2. That's all a lot of hassle and expense compared to my "chrome" techniques. Admittedly, there are things BMF can do that my workarounds can't, but I seem to get along okay without it. B)

    Did you also count the time it takes you to make a batch of your foil?  Time is money.

    Or you could spend it on something less mundane than making your own adhesive foil.

  3. For burgers it is In-n-Out burger is the best (when I am in California, which is not often).  Chick-Fil-A is pretty good, but for chicken nuggets the best place is the "Chicken Shack" - little shop 4 miles from my house. They make the nuggets fresh, right in the back of the place.  They are really juicy and tender, and the breading is very tasty.

  4. If I had a local source of fresh BMF, I might have a higher opinion of it. But I don't, so I have to improvise, adapt, and overcome.

    Ordering directly from BMF is not an potion for you?  Shipping is too costly?

    Maybe buy few sheets and keep them in the fridge until you need them?

  5. Hove you tried Micro-Sol from Microscale or Walthers Solva-set?  Those are aggressive decal setting solutions (Walthers is the strongest). They should soften the decal film so you can scrape it off.  But they are strong enough to leave marks on the paint too.

    I would take a piece of toilet paper and cut it to a shape little larger than the decal, place it over the decal and soak it with the solution. Make sure that the wet paper is in full contact with the decal. Wait 10-15 minutes (keep the paper moist) and then see if you can scrape the decal off.

  6. I regularly use Tamiya Extra Thin and Flexifile, am familiar with Weld-On, which are all about the same (being MEK); good for capillary joining and very fast. But I'd like to know if there's a similar cement which has some more working time and is a bit thicker. I'm not talking about Ambroid or tube glues (too thick) and not talking CA's. That's another whole topic.

    Anything available that fits my description?

    The Tamiya liquid cement I have (don't remember which one) is acetone-based and WeldOn I have is methylene chloride. Both are very fast (methylene chloride is the fastest).   My Testors Liquid Cement is MEK-based and it is much slower evaporating that the other 2 I mentioned.  That is the slowest liquid cement I have encountered.

     

    There are also some non-toxic liquid cement (they use some sort of citrus oils). They have much slower evaporating time but I would stay away from them because they never really fully evaporate.  Especially when large areas are glued. Even after few months you can see some distortion on the styrene develop from where the cement was applied.

  7. They haven't been able to satisfactorily explain why the Earth's temperature during the Roman and Medieval periods was 3.6° warmer than in the present.  Radioisotope dating ice and tree ring growth data prove that. 

    No lights, no motor cars

    Not a single factory

    burning hydrocarbons

    Like we do today.

    But those Romans were really, really flatulent! And we all know that methane contributes to global warming.

  8. I'm having trouble sleeping, because of the incredible pain of this darn sciatica. In fact I didn't sleep at all last night... not even five minutes.

    Man, this kit is really kicking my butt. The engine has so many details, so many tiny separate parts, that I now have a stiff neck and sore shoulders and back just from the intense concentration you need in order to build this engine. New photo updates tomorrow.

    We have some people at work with their cubes configured for working in a standing position.  Do you think it would help to have a high workbench and work on your models in a standing position?  Would that help with the pain?

  9. Acetone will craze/etch plastic. It worked on on "chromed" parts because the metallic layer acts like a barrier protecting the plastic underneath it.  For tinting styrene windows I use Tamiya Acrylic pints (the ones in small glass jars).  The have several transparent colors.  Just don't thin it with lacquer thinner - use Tamiya thinner or Isopropyl alcohol.

  10. If you have access to the technology, another alternative might be to make a high resolution scan and then print them onto ink jet decal paper. If I'm working with rare decals of unknown condition, I'll often take the precaution of scanning the sheet ahead of time. Of course, this gets more problematic if the sheet has a lot of white area.

    I can even do better - I own an Alps MicroDry printer. :)  But it would be much easier to just put the dry transfer on clear decal sheet.  I could still scan them first just to have a backup copy, but since the visible side of the dry transfer decals is against the semi-transparent backing film, the scan will not be very usable without some extra cleanup work.  Still, taking a scan is a good precaution.  Thanks.

  11. Thanks for the info Greg. What brand or type of acrylic lacquer?

     

    Just out of curiosity, if you have small pane of (clean) glass or small mirror handy, could you place them down flat on a table and put few drops of water on them and let it evaporate naturally.  Do you see spots or rings left on the glass or mirror?  If yes then it sounds like your town water has lots of minerals dissolved in it.  If you used distilled water it should leave no spots behind.  You can buy distilled water in gallon size in pharmacies or in many grocery stores (supermarkets).

  12. ... but when I tried to delete the rest of your quote my posting window reverted back to your entire post. Man, this technology krap is effed up. :angry:

    If you revert back aren't you where you just were, not where you want to revert to?  This one is one of my peeves. :P

  13. well, i never bought into that, anyway. somebody is always trying to sell something.

     

    there's another forum which has animated emoti, emiti, whatever-icons, and some threads consist of nothing but replies with them. for a group, here, which eschews "text - spelling", it seems odd to resort to these things.

    Emoticons (or now we also have emojis - thank Japanese culture for this really cutesy stuff)  have been around for a long time.

    The above Wiki link has a good explanation as to why they are used:

    As social media has become widespread, emoticons have played a significant role in communication through technology, and some devices have provided stylized pictures that do not use punctuation. They offer another range of "tone" and feeling through texting that portrays specific emotions through facial gestures while in the midst of text-based cyber communication.

    I also think of emoticons as shortcuts. While you could convey your thoughts purely through words, using emoticons is much easier and faster.  As for the current use you can thank early computer geeks for them. The original emoticons go way back to the days of dial-up bulletin boards where they were written the old-fashioned way using ASCII characters like :-) . Of course as computers got more powerful, cutesy graphics replaced the ASCII text emoticons. That's progress for you. :D

    Even if you dislike those smiley things, I highly recommend that you read the Wikipedia entry I linked to at the beginning of my reply: you might just learn some very interesting things. :)

     

    But as with everything else, there are serious emoticon abusers out there: those who end each sentence with an emoticon, or those who just spew lines full of them across the message like this:

    :D:D:D:D:D:D:D:D:D:D:D:D:D:D:D:D:D:D:D:D:D:D:D:D:D:D:D:D:D:D:D:D:D:D:D:D:D:D:D:D:D:D:D:D:D:D:D:D:D:D:D:D:D:D:D:D

    Like it or not, this is the new way of computer-text-based conversations. You don't have to like them or use them. :P

  14. Model.  There is one very visible clue (at least to me).  But the modeling and photography are superb.

    I have also seen Michael Smith's work in the past. I recognized his work right away. But what to me gives it away is the chain-link fence. It doesn't look like real chin-link pattern but more like veil material.  chain-link has square openings where this stuff is more like a parallelogram.

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